Category Archives: Writing

I can dream. There are no limitations to mental frills, I know. It is for this weak and common reason that I conjure a list of books I dream to search, acquire and read starting at the first crack of the new year. These books provide focus and direction for my reading experience toward satisfying the restive reader in me. These books, though, when acquired, will add to the troublesome search for additional space upon which their covers will rest, emancipated from dust, heat and pest.

Despite all, writing this wish list is in itself satisfying. I may not be able to acquire all of them in print, my preference, within a year, but these are dreams and the very nature of dreams is enough to tickle to indescribable joy this easily tempted bookish heart.

The primary direction is gothic fiction, myself being a fan of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It was not my intention to overlook other possible long stories that share similar characteristics with the godforsaken macabre landscape of Thornfield Hall.

(Updated) – Do you know this line: “What happened to romance? Sappy, soppy longhand love letters…”? If you have seen the film, Beastly (2011), a quiet modern-day rendition of one of my classic fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast, then you would have heard this line said about twice.

And it’s really something to think about: What happened to romance AND handwritten love letters?

Maybe the best question should be: Where have all the men who would choose to brave the intricacies of grammar and the battlefield of composition writing gone? The next best question would probably be: Where are the women who demand (deftly, that is) these letters be given to them without the dictates of holiday spirits?

Better yet, looking at the big picture, why is our constantly evolving culture failing to support a certain system, including a post office, that is deemed capable of feeding the thrills and joys of a seemingly huge population of romantics who are most likely wishing at the back of their minds for handwritten letters?

This is my second attempt at joining Week in Seven Words, which is started by HKatz of The Sill of the World. Please head over to her blog to check out her beautiful scenes for simple and not-so-simple words. Here’s my second set:

(Updated) – I’ve met HKatz of The Sill of the World, one of my favorite blogs, while I was maintaining my old blog, www.nancycudis.com. I haven’t been blogging for the past year due to personal and health reasons. Upon my comeback, I returned on Weebly then to WordPress rather than on Blogger. Despite this, I retain my avidness as a reader for the blogs I have followed in the past, including HKatz’s.

I have always admired her for her creativity in her Week in Seven Words, in coming up with scenes for words that sound, or truly are, simple. For example, for the word expires, she wrote, “The elevator groans open and admits you at your peril”. Another example is the word absolution for which she wrote, “They love talking about actions having consequences until it comes to something they’ve done. Then, good intentions are all that matter”.

As of this writing, HKatz has so far produced 314 posts for Week in Seven Words. Such endeavor as always encouraged me to challenge my creativity. Hence, I wish to support her and in the process challenge my own creativity by participating in her weekly activity by coming up with my own scenes for seven words. I may not be able to participate every week but I’ll be able to do so in some. I may be a bit rusty in some parts (I haven’t written creatively for some time) but I’ll do my best.

I welcome beautiful dreams, those that make me smile when I awake, those that leave a heart-pinching feeling of intoxication, those that cannot be forgotten. I welcome the stories in dreams, those that make me want, the moment I open my eyes, to grab the pen and scratch down the dream-words I’m chasing in my head to form enough literary picture to satisfy the writer in me.

I don’t care much for the meanings of dreams. When I dreamed of myself climbing endless staircases but never reaching the light or the door at the top, I learned it meant I would experience failures and successes in life. But then, what is life without a bit of failure and a bit of success?

When I dreamed of myself climbing the wide stairway of my old high school campus and falling off when the stairs suddenly shifted, I was told it meant it I would experience severe failure or tragedy. Should I be extra careful? As life goes, failure is part of it, like a spoke of a wheel. The gravity of a tragedy or a failure will determine my strength and resiliency as a person.

I care more, though, for the story of a dream. It was that kind of dramatic love story you see on television dramas or read on Harlequin’s sweet romance books, a composition of sweet and sour incidents from start to end. Yes, it ended satisfactorily that I woke up smiling and feeling giddy. And yes, it ended satisfactorily such that it made me want to write about it here.